Rating: 2/5

I want to preface this review by saying this: I had such high hopes. I came for the culture, the world-building, the lgbtqia+ rep and the poly rep. I got messy world-building, on-the-nose characters that have no background to support their growth or way of thinking and a *very* botched story (figured out the ending by halfway).

People compare it to Pacific Rim because the story is around pilots that conduct huge machines against alien. Weren't it from the image brought by Pacific Rim, the descriptions would not have been enough for me to follow the story.

The battle scenes were so messy. One of them is even summed up in one sentence. Like HELLO, this is what we came for? 

The polycouple and lgbtqui+ rep? Oh yeah we get it like, by the end. They are multiple references to it through the book, but we GET IT only at the end. That sucked, big time. 

That sort of brand of feminism - angry, vengeful, bloodthirsty - I usually love, but the main character just felt so intense. I really wanted a feminist fighter but I wanted her to think things through. Never happened in this book. Like how does a peasant girl who has never been exposed to such radical ideas just suddenly become a cool / collected / badass / fighter? They went from 0 to 100 too fast. It was not character development, it was personality transplant.

I actually don't know how to explain the disappointment that was this read. The first 20% was great, but then it got worse by the page.

All and all, the idea was amazing but poorly executed - this book feels like a draft, not like a finished result.